Luna

A strong personality is evident in this pet household. They each have their own way of interacting.

For instance, Luna will bat around antything that moves (except her toys, or course).  I put down a cap to  my water bottle and couldn't find it. A few minutes later I see her bolting across the floor...with my bottle cap.

My son, who had kidney disease, had to take alot of medications and we were always losing those mini measuring medicine cups. What happened to them? Luna. She must have pushed at least 6 of them under the dishwasher.

One time a whole medicine bottle went missing. The culprit? Yep. Luna

You might wonder how I know for sure it was her doing thise things. Well, I caught her red-pawed walking around with one of those medicine cups in her mouth.I have even wittnessed her walking off with our sponge!

 Even now, she is not shy about it. She will blatantly jump on the counter and attempt to run off with something. She knows I'm coming to retrieve the item and she makes a run for it. She is silly sometimes, but we love her!

What about your pets? Anything other than a toy they will play with? Tell me about it in the comments.

 

Happy National Pet Day

Wow, the move sure did  throw me off track!  All of our fur babies are doing great. We are battling a personality clash between two of our cats. Currently Peanut wants to let our newest addition Leia know he is boss.  We decided to try separating them into 2 adjacent rooms. This way they could sense eachother, but not interact. So we will see how that goes. If any readers out there have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. 

Im sharing some photos in honor of National Pet Day.

Peanut loves our wood burning stove!

Luna Loves to play with the stream of water...every time.

Leai and the Cat tree.

This one speaks for itself. Colt always is after the Guinnea pig! 

Happy National Pet Day! Give those guys extra pets today! 

Spooked

Our newest cat Leia is quite the character.  She's complicated. She loves people and enjoys rubs and pets. However, she has a terrible time getting along with other cats. I think before we had her she was constantly fighting with a cat she lived with. When she joined our Animal Kingdom, she took on the role of agressor. (Much to Peanut's dismay. He is the alpha male in the house and he will not let this happen too easily).   Leia's favorite cat to keep in line is the youngest one, Luna. Luna will avoid Leia at all costs. 

Well, last night I was playing with Colt.  He likes to run around and chase things. Since it was raining, I humored him and jogged around the living room so he could burn off some of that Jack Russel energy. Leia, who was on top of the table and in clear view of the commotion, became spooked. I've never seen her that freaked out before.  She stood up on all four legs, arched her back slowly until she couldn't arch it anymore. The hair on her back stood up and her tail puffed out to about three times its size. Even now, we still are not sure what it was that spooked her so much. But we stopped immediately and calmed her down. 

I think over all, she is very nervous from her past experiences and is trying to compensate for that. We hope that as time goes on, things improve for her. I know the next few weeks are going to be rough for her as we are moving. Any major change is bound to stress the cats out, which will surely slow her progress.  

Colt and Luna's Adventerous Weekend

In a few weeks we will be moving out of the house I've been in for over 19 years. If everything goes as planned, we hope to close on a house out of the city early next month.  In preparation, we are going through our itens and held a Moving Sale.

Part of Colt's nature as a Jack Russel is that he prefers being around everyone all the time. What ever we are doing, he wants to be a part of. 

For example, I had to go to the bank on Friday. Colt, of course, wanted to tag along. Since I didn't need to leave the car, I let him come. The nice lady at the bank even gave him a treat! (Oh yes, looks like this will be a favorite for him.) 

During the Moving Sale, he wanted to be a part of the action. So I grabbed a water bowl and his leash and we set up. He was very good and even went off leash as we were cleaning up.

He had fun greeting everyone and loved the company and attention. You can tell it was quite a day for him.

Speaking of the move, our cat Luna is known for her curiosity. As we were going through items to start packing up for the move, we found a portable radio. She's never seen it before and this was her reaction:

Not too sure about this

What is that thing?

Umm....

You got to love these guys. They keep it interesting! 

Farewell Simba

Just days after I started this blog, our cat Simba crossed over the Rainbow Bridge. It came as a surprise to us because he had seemed fine up until a day or so before his crossing over.

This cat did not have an easy life. He was found on the streets close to where I teach. A coworker started caring for him but knew her dog would not accept the cat. So I offered to take him in. I knew he was a nervous cat and had a tail injury, but also that we could give him a home.

When I first met him at my coworker's friend's house,  he hid and we had to lure him out. As soon as I saw him, I saw his injured tail. There was a bald spot about 3/4 down his tail. It never grew back and became a character trait of our Simba.  We immediately took him to the vet, who wasn't too concerned about his tail. We got him his shots, chipped, neutered and took him home.

During the last year and a half he had his ups and downs with our crazy pet family.  Peanut, who thinks he's king of the house, capitalized on Simba's fears to "keep him in his place".  If Simba felt brave enough, he would try to stand his ground.

And as nervous as he was, Simba would still socialize at times and always ate with the rest of the cats.

He was a loving cat. As soon as you would pet him he would purr a very loud pur. Sometimes he was able to hiss at another cat and go right back to purring and being pet. Often times we could redirect him and his fears by giving him some petting time.

We take comfort in knowing that as rough as his life was, he got to enjoy a happy home for his remaining time here.  We are confident that since his crossing over the Rainbow Bridge on October 17th, that he is in a happier place and never has to hide again.  Till we meet again, dear Simba!

Luna: Our Newest Member

Luna is the newest member of the family. When she came to us a couple of weeks ago she was between just 3-4 weeks old. My husband's boss brought her into work  after the litter was attacked by a fox. Luna was the only survivor and  Kevin (my husband) immediately wanted to take her in.

She has been ambitious from the start. She wanted nothing to do with a bottle and quickly learned how to lap up her fluids. She has been watching the other cats, especially Oreo who seemed to have taken on the role of Surrogate Mother.

The above picture was Oreo with Luna the first night. The other cats took a few days to warm up to her. Izzy, who has been used to being the center of attention, had a particularly rough couple of days before accepting Luna. In fact, whenever she thought nobody was watching, I would catch Izzy grooming her. 

It has been a few weeks now and Luna is adjusting well. She is a growing bundle of energy that will light up anyone's day. 

Welcome to the family, Luna